


Tell Me a Secret

by wtfoctagon



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, body horror metaphors maybe???, minor suicide ideation warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:46:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfoctagon/pseuds/wtfoctagon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collections of drabble prompts I enjoyed writing for tumblr. Mostly Nozoeli.<br/>1) "Tell me a secret," NozoEli in their first year<br/>2)"I wish I could hate you," Nozoeli, unrequited<br/>3)"Do you... well... I mean... I could give you a massage?" Kotoumi fluff<br/>4)"I think I'm in love with you and I'm terrified," NicoMaki humor<br/>5)“Wanna dance?” and “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.” Nozoeli, second person Nozomi's POV, angst and fluff<br/>6) "confusion," Nozoeli first years awkwardness</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fifteen Year Old Heart

45\. "Tell me a secret".

* * *

 

The stars move slowly across the dark wallpaper, muffled cadences of a guitar whispering under it. Nozomi closes her eyes and syncs her breathing to that of the warm body lying beside her on her bed. 

“It’s late,” Eli whispers, sleepy blue eyes now navy in the darkness. “I should probably go.”

“Probably,” Nozomi murmurs, gaze following the ursa minor along her ceiling before refocusing on her companion. “Your family will be worried.”

“Hmm,” Eli hums, before going back to staring at the stars. She looks so far away and Nozomi wonders what she’s thinking. She wants to know what the stars look like to Eli, how the bedspread feels to Eli, how her room looks like to Eli. She’s so curious, she wants to know, but she just lies there and stares at her friend, inhibitions gone in the intimacy of the late night.

Yes, intimacy. They’re not doing anything together, they’re not even talking, but there’s a deep closeness in experiencing the world together, to see the same things, next to each other, to simply exist in the same space and time-

Nozomi imagines that she can feel the warmth of Eli’s hands from a few inches away. They’ve only been friends for a few months now, a few, precious months, and Nozomi has never felt so deeply entwined with the essence of another human being until this moment, this night, these heartbeats on her worn bedsheets with this blonde stranger.

“Toujou-san,” Eli says, sleepily wrapping her fingers around Nozomi’s hand.

Nozomi looks over with unsteady breaths.

“What is it?”

“Tell me a secret,” Eli whispers, eyelids drooping. Her chest rises once, then falls slowly, asleep before she hears her answer.

Nozomi can only lace their fingers together gently, thumb brushing over Eli’s pinky. Stars glow on her cheek, stretching shadows across her nose before moving on.

“I love you,” Nozomi whispers with the steady, proud beats of a fifteen year old heart.


	2. I Wish I Could Hate You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 36\. "I Wish I Could Hate You" 
> 
> Blood and death mentions warning

Falling in love is like slowly bleeding to death, Nozomi finds. She wishes it could be like a gunshot, painless and fast, but it isn’t- it’s the slow dripping of blood down a tube that you hear in a hospital;  _drip, drip, drip_ amidst beeps and silence like a death sentence. 

A drop for everytime she catches a sparkle of sky blue in the winter morning sun. A drop for every time golden strands wander into her face during stretches and lavender envelops her world. A drop for every trill of a voice like wind chimes and angels.  _Drip, drip, drip_ , and Eli just smiles on, unknowing, unsullied, guiltless. 

Nozomi’s phone dies in the middle of replying to Eli’s text, and she lets it fall on her chest with a hollow, defeated thud. She wonders if Eli would worry, would care for her, but pettiness is futile; it’s late and Eli would just assume she’d fallen asleep. They would talk about it when they meet tomorrow morning, and Nozomi would laugh it off, and Eli would smile and shake her head in exasperation and platonic affection.

Anxious speculation that Eli would think nothing of it is always hurtful. But Nozomi knows that Eli has already tucked herself in and fallen asleep, and her chest pulses with hollow agony rather than stretched out pain. It’s nicer, in a way. 

It’s nothing new.

Nozomi looks up out of her window at the night sky, phone sliding off her shoulder onto the bed. “I wish I could hate you,” she whispers to the brightest star in the sky, and she tells herself she means it. She means it because she wouldn’t be in this much pain, cry herself to sleep at night, working out the soreness in her face from stretching it out in smiles that she doesn’t mean, from pushing herself into a mask she doesn’t want.

She means it, she means it. She means it and the fact that she’s reaching for her phone wire to text Eli back has no bearing on her conviction.

It’ll pass, they say, the adults, the friends, the people who offer their ineffectual compassion. It’ll pass, when you’re an adult it’ll be nothing, just a teenage crush, they say, they say. Time heals all wounds, they say, but what they don’t know is that Nozomi has no wounds. She’s simply bleeding through her soul, through her essence, because it doesn’t feel like her life started until the moment she saw Eli, in that classroom, on that day. All her memories from before are blurred gray and sepia and of a different person, someone she doesn’t know, doesn’t remember. Someone who had never seen Eli before, and what could be more unfamiliar to Nozomi than that?

Her phone buzzes on and she sees that Eli’s left her five messages before going to bed; two asking her if she’s still there, three filled with affection and a good night wish. 

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip._

She replies, an apology, a heart emoji, a goodnight wish, a  _see-you-tomorrow_. Her phone lights up in an almost immediate reply of one, singular, relieved heart.

_Drip._

Nozomi clutches the phone to her chest as a tear sinks itself into her pillowcase. 

It’s just not fair, really.


	3. Massage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you... Well... I mean... I could give you a massage?"

The sewing machine whirred in the otherwise silent room, filling up the brightly lit room with a sense of productivity. Umi looked up from the set of lyrics she had been working on, catching the way that Kotori’s eyes squinted at the fine seam she was focusing on- Umi always, always loved sneaking peeks at her when she was working. The girl had a small habit of sticking her tongue out when she was concentrating, almost like Chuutaro, Umi’s corgi, when he wasn’t paying attention.

Kotori would probably get mad at being compared to a corgi. Umi pictured puffed up blushing cheeks and brows furrowed in one of the least intimidating (but most convincing) pouts she’d ever seen in her life, and smiled before returning to her work.

She looked up again when the pulsing whirs stopped altogether and Kotori let out a high-pitched yawn. 

“Done for the night?” Umi asked, setting her pen down as well. Kotori nodded, pouting as she padded over to her friend and lay face-down in her lap.

Umi blubbered as Kotori’s mouth and nose squished into her thigh.

“K-Kotori, what-”

“My back hurts sooooooooo much from hunching over the sewing machine, Umi-chan,” Kotori whined into the material of Umi’s skirt. “Let me stay?”

 _Always_ , she thought, letting a hesitating hand rest on Kotori’s hair.

“Do you want… well… I mean…,” she stuttered, petting her lightly. “I could give you a massage?”

The eyes that turned to look up at her were filled with such morose gratitude that Umi couldn’t help but chuckle. It was almost the splitting image of Chuutaro asking to be let on her futon on cold nights.

Umi breathed once for courage before placing a small kiss on Kotori’s cheek and coaxing her to sit up.


	4. Terrified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I think I'm in love with you and I'm terrified"  
> NicoMaki, BiBi roomates!

Nico held onto Maki’s wrist with trembling fingers, material bunching between dainty knuckles. Her face was turned down, stare pointed resolutely at their shoes, other hand coming up to rest over her heart.

“I…,” Nico started, hand clutching her sweater. “I think…”

She raised her dewy eyes, bravely, with the quivering conviction of a young girl in love.

Maki tried not to flinch at the burning passion In Nico’s eyes. 

“I think I’m in love with you,” Nico finally said. “And I’m terrified,” she finished in a whisper, voice breaking as she hung her head once more and let go of Maki’s wrist.

A small pause passed as Nico cried into her sleeves and Maki stood there, mouth opening and closing as she tried to compose herself. 

Nico looked up from her hands, grinning.

“So? How was I? Amazing? Wonderful? Going to nail this audition? Don’t be modest with your accolades, please.”

Maki stared for a second, blinking once, twice, before she coughed into her hand hand looked away, twirling her hair. Nico gasped, leaning around to try and catch Maki’s eyes again.

“Don’t tell me, I actually got you flustered?”

“N-no, idiot. I was just…”

Nico giggled before Maki could come up with a plausible excuse. 

“Wow, Maki-chan, you’re pretty easy~” Nico sang delightedly, punching Maki lightly on the arm. 

“Hey! Don’t say stuff like that,” was Maki’s only protest, coughing into her fist again. “You were pretty… convincing,” she said, refusing to make eye contact.

“That’s all you got? Man, you might be cute, Maki-chan, but you’re really stingy with your compliments.”

Nico laughed and skipped off to the coat rack before Maki could swipe her into a cheek pinch.

“Hey!”

Nico stuck her tongue out at her as she picked her coat. 

“Well, thanks anyway, but the star has to leave for her audition,” she said, twirling her coat like a cape before putting it on. 

“Good luck,” Eli called from across the living room, not looking up from the report she was typing up.

“Thanks,” Nico called back, tripping a little as she pulled her shoes on. She swayed to the side and almost fell over before standing upright and pretending she hadn’t had an ungraceful mishap. “Ahem. There’s two nights worth of leftovers in the fridge, so I better not come home to a pair of idiots who forgot to eat. Again.”

Eli gave an noncommital grunt. Nico rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Whatever. See you guys later.”

“Bye,” Eli and Maki mumbled in unison as Nico cheerfully shut the door behind her.

Maki let out a deep breath she’d been holding and collapsed onto the couch, frowning at the ceiling. She put one hand over her pounding heart and tried to calm herself, licking her shaking lips.

 _Terrified,_  she silently mouthed.

Eli glanced over passively, still typing. “Poor thing,” she muttered under her breath.

“W-what?”

“Nothing,” Eli sighed, taking a sip of her coffee.


	5. If My Heart was a House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 37\. “Wanna dance?” and also, 14. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.” for Nozoeli  
> Minor suicide ideation warning

The elevator doors close and you sigh the unspoken words in your lungs. They slick and stick like tar, coating the sides of your ribs and pooling in the pit of your stomach:  _I’m sad. I’m tired. I want to die._

If only you had a way of telling people that existence has become exhausting without alarming them. But you don’t, so you just smile, say you’re fine, crack some joke about being tired as if it’s some vague concept that doesn’t permeate your bones, that isn’t a lead ghost settled on haunting the sockets of your eyes.

You’re tired. You’re so tired. You’ve slept ten hours a night for the past week, and you still wake up with cotton in your mouth and stinging eyes as dry as the Mojave Desert. It was never so bad when you lived in Arizona, when loneliness was the only darkness that had found you so far, and you made do, you made do. The flyaway sky was your canopy and the tough sands were your playground, and you often chased them as they stretched on forever into the horizon.

You left her there, that little girl– she tumbles in the sands now, still, running down the slopes off the roads, laughing, while you stand alone in an elevator that you know will open to a pitch black afternoon. The cold seeps in through the scars on your skin and settles into that marrow of your bones, like ink through pen scratches on brittle paper. You’re so cold, you’re so tired, but there’s no time to rest.

Beyond the elevator doors is the threshold of an empty home, piles of dishes, piles of laundry, piles of homework. Your night is just chores and school, and the next next night is the same, and your life becomes an endless cycle of tasks, deadlines, anxiety in you gut.

You love the snow. You don’t like the dark. You’ve never been as afraid as Eli, but maybe you should be- when it gets darker at 5, your antidepressants do nothing and you’re left to percolate in your own sadness and fatigue, and that’s never been good for anybody.

The elevator doors open. You step through, thumbing the keys in your coat pocket. Clack clack clack, down the hall. You pull your keys out and needles poke at your fingers, intent to numb them soon- a push, a twist, a click, and you’re inside.

All the lights are on. Did you forget again? What does it matter? You definitely didn’t leave the stereo on when you left. What is happening?

Eli steps into view, grinning, pale hands reaching for you.

“Welcome home!”

She grabs you into a hug, bright like the sun against your cold cheeks. She giggles and you’re burning, burning, molten churning in your throat.

“Elicchi, what- what are you doing here?”

She pulls away, smiling as she unpackages you from your scarf.

“I’m sorry to just invade your home like this. I knew you weren’t feeling well today so I thought I’d drop by.”

“Oh.” She throws your scarf on the hook and starts on your coat buttons when your fumbling fingers slip. “Thank you.”

“I… also might have done all your dishes and laundry.”

The anxiety in your gut stops stretching your innards this way and that.

“Why?” 

Eli shrugs, pushing your coat off your shoulders and hanging it up.

“I just felt like doing something nice for you. Nice music and dinner is something you’re down for, right?”

“You made dinner?”

She sticks her tongue out a bit and wrinkles her nose. “Caught me.”

She pecks you lightly on the mouth before twirling away into the small living room.

She’s beautiful and you don’t deserve her.

_You’re the sky that I fell through…_

“You found my Owl City CD’s?”

“Yeah,” she laughs, bouncing a bit to the steady tune. “You really need to organize your music drawer, you know. The American ones were all mixed in with the regular ones.”

“I don’t really listen to CDs anymore. I should clean up, though.”

She grabs your hands and kisses you again.

“Why the long face? I wasn’t scolding you or anything. I just had trouble finding this one because I wasn’t sure what all the English ones said.”

“Why were you looking for this one?”

She smiles. “You showed it to me once, remember? It’s so cute, I thought it would be the perfect backdrop for our date.”

_So I might as well ditch my dismay…_

“Come on,” she says, pulling you towards the center of the living room. “Wanna dance?”

_Bombs away, bombs away…_

You nod, and she takes you away, shimmying so much unlike a former ballerina, twirling as her skirt kites around her thighs and you laugh. You laugh and laugh as she twirls you in turn, the fire in your chest warming, warming, until it’s blazing and tears rise and you’re crying into her shoulder as she smooths her hands on your back, up and down, up and down.

It’s guilt, probably, some sort of mixed catharsis of bliss and shame. She makes you happier than you ever believed you would be, but it doesn’t last, it never lasts, and it’s so selfish of you, so pointless for you to take these things that she does for you and waste them. Her love is so, so good, and what for, what for, what for?

She kisses up and down your ear and hair and temple, swaying you lightly in a slow dance to the fairy tale beat.

“I love you,” she whispers. “One day at a time, Nozomi. We’ll take it one day at a time, together.”

“I love you,” you blubber. You’re getting tears and snot on her shirt and you’re just… you should just stop. “You make it so much better.”

“I’m so happy that I do,” she says, and you can’t understand why. What is there about you to love? You are the ghost of a girl you used to know, the scraps of the person you wanted to be.

“I’m so proud of you, okay? Do you know that?”

“For what?”

“For getting up every morning. For getting ready and going to school and just keeping on, for pushing. You have so much more to fight in any given day and I’m so proud of you, okay?”

Something breaks inside of you because she makes you feel less like a failure, less like a waste of space, less like you’re wasting so many hours of the day struggling with things other people don’t even think about, less like a pathetic lump. 

She kisses you, again and again, and you just hold onto the front of her shirt, wrinkling it with your clutched hands but you know, for the first time with anyone, that she doesn’t mind. 

“You’re so good to me.”

“And you’re so good to me,” she smiles, taking one of your hands and raising it up, like in a waltz.

You shake your head into her shoulder and she laughs.

“You are, you know. We’re good to each other. Let’s stay that way.”

You wish. Oh, you wish, you wish, you wish, that you’ll be with her forever. But no one should promise to stay, and no one should believe those promises, and you know that better than anyone.

“Hey. I see you not believing me there,” she laughs, tilting your head up with her hands and kissing you, again. “I’m with you, okay? Always.”

And maybe you shouldn’t believe her, but you do. You believe that she believes, and maybe that shouldn’t be enough but you’re so, so tired of feeling broken and alone all the time; so goddamn tired of your own mind telling you that she doesn’t love you that you just want to lay it all to rest, even if just for one night. 

“Come on,” she says, squeezing you one last time. “Wanna go stuff our faces and lie dead on the couch with disney movies for the rest of the night?”

“Yes please.”

_Back and forth, if my heart was a compass, you’d be north…_

Love isn’t a cure, love is never going to be enough, but it’s a shelter, it’s a start. You find sanctuary in her arms on the couch as she drapes a blanket over you both and you don’t know where you would be without a safe place from the storm, a place to hide from the dark.

_Risk it all, ‘cause I’ll catch you if you fall…_

_Wherever you go, if my heart was a house, you’d be home._


	6. It's Just Another Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of Nozomi and Eli's friendship is, inevitably, quite rocky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt! nozoeli and confusion. somehow im obsessed with their pre-muse dynamic and the sheer fucking awkwardness of their initial meeting lmao

Toujou-san is an incredibly confusing person.

Not that Eli’s never had people make persistent attempts at befriending her— the thing is, basically everyone gives up after the fifth or so time that Eli turns them down. She’s not worth the trouble of harassing into a friendship. Eli knows this, and she’s fine with that— that’s how she wants it to be, really. Most of them are coming over to prod at the ‘foreigner’ out of curiosity, anyway.

Toujou Nozomi, on the other hand, just doesn’t know how to give up. Most people would have been put off by Eli’s cold brush-offs by now, but this girl just keeps on smiling and coming back for more. She doesn’t _ask_ to hang out, she just skips over during lunch and drags Eli over to the corner of the music room, as if it’s a _given_ that they’re going to spend their lunch hour together—

Which, well. Has become a regular occurence now, anyway, whether Eli likes it or not.

(And she can’t really convince herself that she doesn’t like it.)

“What’cha frowning about?”

Toujou-san asks, cheerful and curious as ever, with a mouthful of bread just big enough to add a cute muffle to her voice but small enough to not be vulgar. She’s leaning towards Eli with her elbows on the desk between them and it’s just close enough that Eli can notice the faint freckles sprinkled over her cheeks and bridged over her nose.

“Nothing,” is Eli’s rather lukewarm reply, and it sounds rude even to her— it’s not that she does it on purpose, per se. She’s just really bad at talking to people. There’s never been a reason for her to try to be better, though. She just… hasn’t cared enough. Not since moving back to Japan, anyway.

“You’re lyin’,” Toujou-san teases, swinging her feet playfully.

“I’m not!” Eli bristles at the accusation, even though— it’s just like her to say those kinds of— _brash_ , blunt things with such a throwaway tone. In that infuriating accent of hers that’s definitely fake but also definitely not. It’s confusing.

 _She’s_ confusing.

Toujou-san grins leisurely as she leans back in her chair.

“Ayase-san’s cute when she’s pouting.”

And _that—_ the— the _teasing_ , is so frustrating because it makes Eli’s ears burn and fumble her words and it’s _embarrassing_.

“I’m not— you can’t just—” she clutches her bread roll and feels somewhat like a cat raising her hackles and it’s very undignified. “You can’t just _say_ things like that!”

“Aw, you’re blushin’,” she laughs. “That’s cute too.”

“You’re—” Eli growls. “You’re impossible.”

Toujou-san only gives her a guileful grin in return, the one that makes her dimples push in the most. Eli likes those smiles more than others, she thinks. Well, Toujou-san is _always_ smiling, but maybe that’s why. Some of them just feel… fake, for lack of a better term. Empty, almost.

How unhappy does someone have to be to act perpetually cheerful?

Everything about her is confusing like that, Eli thinks as the bell rings and they head back to class. She’s so— horribly forward and bubbly, and just so gleeful about tormenting Eli: but then, Eli catches her sometimes, when she doesn’t think anyone is looking, whether when she’s wiping down the blackboard while on cleaning duty, or just staring out the window during class, and she just looks so _sad_.

Eli wants to ask why. But then she’ll probably— probably say something infuriating and tease her instead, just to avoid answering the question.

That’s another thing, too— Toujou-san is always prodding Eli for details on anything, basically, her favourite colour, her favourite music, and so on, to varying degrees of success (okay, maybe to a pretty consistent degree of success, because when all else fails she pulls out a pout that Eli just _can’t_ say no to), but she never offers any tidbits on herself.

Eli knows basically nothing about her, at this point. You’d think that someone so insistently and overwhelmingly friendly would be making friends with most of the class, but no, she doesn’t even seem to talk to anyone other than Eli. As far as Eli can tell, she’s a transfer student too, as new to the area as she is. No one even knows which middle school she went to.

Why me, she wants to ask, preferably in a less… antagonistic way. Eli’s used to catching strangers’ attention, on account of her appearance and all— but it’s always tapered off once people had their curiosity sated. It’s never been the kind of laser-focus that Toujou-san has. Never someone who’s just… genuinely invested in getting to know her.

She can’t tell if she likes it or hates it. On one hand, it’s… really nice. Toujou-san doesn’t seem to mind that Eli hardly says anything, and for once Eli manages to have regular conversations with someone without getting exhausted all the time. On the other hand…

“Ayase-san!” the bundle of gleeful guile hops over to her at the entrance hall, just as she’s swapping out her shoes. “Not staying at the library today?”

Eli shakes her head as she straightens up and closes her locker. “I promised my little sister that I’d help her out with homework.”

Toujou-san smiles. “Man, you’re such a nice older sister. I wish I had siblings like that.”

Eli cants her head. “Are you an only child?”

Toujou-san’s smile trails like an afterthought as she raises her brows, taken aback, like she wasn’t expecting to be asked that.

“Oh,” she says, somewhat hesitantly, before recovering her cheerfulness and folding her hands behind her back playfully. “Yup! Always just been me and my parents.”

It sounds… a little lonely, to be honest. Eli tries to imagine her life without Alisa, being the only child in the house, and it feels sad.

“Anyway,” Toujou-san says, bouncing on her heels once. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ayase-san.”

Eli frowns. “Aren’t you going home too?”

“Nah, I forgot my umbrella,” she says. “I’m gonna wait it out a bit until it’s not pouring so hard.”

Eli glances behind her at the gate, and yeah, it’s— it’s pretty bad. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be letting up anytime soon, to be frank, and she has a feeling that Toujou-san will just walk home in the rain anyway after Eli’s gone home.

It’s not a good feeling.

“You can share mine,” she says, pulling her umbrella out of her bag. “I’ll walk you home.”

Genuine astonishment, this time, that breaks through her friendly persona pretty much completely: Toujou-san stares, mouth even a little bit open like she’s frozen halfway through a word, and it really just… frustrates Eli. That this girl just doesn’t expect people to be nice to her, or something.

But, she’s quick on her feet, if nothing else. She gives her signature grin and Eli just _knows_ she’s about to say something embarrassing.

“Really?” she asks in a sing-song voice, leaning towards Eli. “That was pretty smooth, Ayase-san. You’re like my own personal gentleman.”

“Don’t— _say_ things like that!” Eli hisses, regretting her decision immediately.

“Why not? Everyone likes dashing girls.”

“I—” Eli huffs. “Just— ugh! Are you coming or not?”

She is, obviously, and she happily clings to Eli’s arm the entire way. It’s _embarrassing_. She’s pressed up against her side and she’s— she’s really warm, compared to the unusually cold spring air, and Eli’s ears won’t stop burning for some reason.

They’re about halfway to Toujou-san’s apartment when she finally gets a hold of her hammering pulse and notices that they haven’t exchanged a single word the entire way. She risks a glance and finds Toujou-san staring out at the rain, almost serenely. The small smile on her face isn’t hollow or reflexive like her default usually is. There’s a calm look in her eyes, something deep, contemplative, enigmatic, even. The rain suits her, somehow, from the petrichor to the quiet chill of the pitter-patter.

She’s. Really pretty, when she’s not paying so much attention to how she’s acting.

Toujou-san looks over to catch Eli’s gaze, and smiles playfully.

“What is it? Do I have something on my face?”

It’s a much less… teasing comment than Eli would expect after getting caught staring. She frowns.

“No. You’re just… unusually quiet, is all.”

She laughs. “I guess I am. I dunno. I’ve always liked rain. It makes me feels sad, but more like… soothing melancholy, than just sadness, if that makes any sense at all?”

Why does she always try to seem like a dense happy-go-lucky girl when she’s really more eloquent, like this?

“You’re so strange,” she blurts out before she can stop herself.

The reaction to a throwaway remarks she makes under her breath is immediate and jarring. Toujou-san lets go of her arm and simply stops walking, so suddenly that Eli has to turn to face her just to keep the umbrella over both of them. She misses the warmth on her side almost instantly.

“Oh,” Toujou-san says, grasping her bag strap with both hands and staring at her feet. She looks so _small_. “I guess so, hey? Sorry.”

“I didn’t—” Eli feels like she’s just shoved her entire leg in her mouth, nevermind her foot— “I didn’t mean it like—”

“It’s okay!” Toujou-san says, giving her a grin, even as her eyes don’t quite meet Eli’s. “I don’t mind, I get that a lot, you know—”

“Stop it,” Eli says, hand clenching at her side. “I hate it when you smile like that.”

That strikes it right off Toujou-san’s face.

“I—” she looks at her feet again. “I’m sorry—”

“Stop _apologizing!_ ” Eli hisses, scowling. “Why are you— why are you like this?” She clenches her fist, shaking. “You’re always butting into my business regardless of whether or not I want to see you, but then you turn around and act so _surprised_ when I show that I like you too! Why are you always so— so _confusing?_ ” Eli demands. “You hardly ever smile for real— you’re always smiling that awful hollow smile and you _act_ like you’re happy but you’re just—” her eyes sting with tears. “Why do you avoid answering when I ask you anything about you? Why can’t you just be honest with me? Why did you—” she takes a heaving breath. “Why did you pick me if you were going to make it so _hard_ everytime I try to get to know you?”

The girl stares at her, both hands white-knuckling her bag strap and her slightly damp hair sticking to her face, eyes wide. Eli’s never seen her so _stricken_. There’s a rosy flush to her cheeks that are pale from the cold, or from all the things Eli’s basically shouted at her—

All the terribly worded things she just blurted out for no reason starts to sink in and Eli takes half a step back.

“That was—” the back of her neck heats up. “That was rude, I’m sorry, I didn’t—” She shoves the umbrella into Toujou-san’s hands, feeling her tears start to burn up because she _always_ cries when she’s embarrassed and it’s _great_ — “please just forget I said anything.”

And then she runs. Into the rain, shoes slapping against the road and starting to fill with rainwater, her uniform starting to soak through— dammit, dammit, _dammit_ . She _always_ does this— she lets herself get too comfortable, and just says whatever stupid thing she has on her mind— and it’s always something rude and blunt and why can’t she just learn how to _talk_ to people like a normal human being?

She stops at the top of a hill, feeling cold, breathless, with a harsh sort of whistle in every breath she takes as if her lungs have been punctured.

It’s fine. This is fine. This isn’t the first time it’s happened— someone tries to get to know her, and then this happens, they leave and then she moves on.

But this time she— she actually wanted to make it work— the first time she really wants things to work out, and she has to go and _screw_ it up.

She clenches her jaw and squeezes her eyes shut.

_Stupid._

——————————

“Hey. Hey, Elicchi.”

Eli groans and sits up, rubbing her eyes.

“Nozomi…?” She squints at her girlfriend. “What time is it?”

“About ten in the morning.” Nozomi says cheerfully, lying on her stomach on the bed next to Eli and kicking her legs idly. “Want some breakfast?”

“ _What?_ ” Eli grabs her phone off the nightstand. “I’m missing my first lecture!”

She shoots out of bed, tripping over her feet and basically falling into her closet. Nozomi laughs, because of _course_ she’d be amused by Eli’s misfortune.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Eli whines, tearing through her shirt box to find a clean button up. “You _know_ my prof for this class is a super hard-ass, I can’t show up even five minutes late—”

“Elicchi.”

“ — without some snarky comment about not being invested in the stupid course—”

“Eli.”

“I’d drop it if I didn’t need it for my program, god—”

“Ayase-san.”

Eli pokes her head out of the closet, only halfway into her shirt and trying to squeeze into her jeans.

_“What?”_

Nozomi grins like a cat, chin resting on her crossed arms.

“It’s Saturday.”

Eli pauses her hopeless grapple with the zipper.

“... Oh.”

She stands there listlessly as Nozomi cracks up into a pillow, giggling full-force.

“I’m happy you’re so amused by this,” she grumbles, extricating herself from her jeans, but opting to keep the shirt on. “I nearly had a heart attack…”

“Sorry,” Nozomi says, rolling onto her side as Eli plops facedown onto her half of the bed. She props her head up on one arm and rubs Eli’s back apologetically. “You’re adorable when you’re flustered.”

“Mmmnrgh.” She groans into the pillow before resurfacing and turning her head towards Nozomi. “Don’t tease me…”

“I can’t help it,” she laughs, scooting close enough that she can wrap an arm around Eli’s waist. “It’s not easy having the cutest girlfriend in the world, you know.”

Eli crosses her arms under her head, mimicking Nozomi’s earlier pose somewhat. She smiles softly because— Nozomi’s super gorgeous in the mornings. Her hair’s still kind of messy because she hasn’t brushed it out properly yet, kind of sloppily bundled into an attempt at a bun, and her skin looks super soft in the early sunlight that filters through their curtains.

“Yeah,” Eli says, smiling adoringly. “It really isn’t.”

It takes Nozomi a second to get it, but when she does, she flushes so immediately that Eli can’t help but laugh. Normally, she just lets Nozomi have the upper hand because this girl is _shameless_ and it’s pointless to try and out-flirt her, but these rare moments when Eli catches her off-guard are priceless. Nozomi opens and closes her mouth a few times, trying to say something, before just giving up and grabbing a bunch of the blanket to burrow her face into.

“Aw,” Eli teases, propping herself up onto her side too, so she can face Nozomi fully. “Are you blushing?”

“No!” Nozomi whines, muffled by the blanket.

“Are you sure?” Eli says, hugging her close despite her embarrassed wiggling. “It sure seems like you are.”

“I don’t know!” Nozomi just burrows even more. Eli just giggles and tugs at the blanket, trying to excavate her girlfriend.

“Hey, come back,” she laughs, kissing what little of Nozomi’s head she can access. “I’ll behave. I promise.”

It takes a few seconds, but then Nozomi pulls the blanket back just enough to peek up at Eli petulantly, the lower half of her face still buried.

“You’re mean.”

“I’m sorry,” Eli says again, still smiling and not looking sorry at all as she kisses Nozomi’s forehead. “I can’t help it. You look angelic in the morning.”

Nozomi whines and hides again.

“You can’t just— _say_ things like that!”

“Why not?” Eli tugs her in closer. “I love you!”

Nozomi groans, wriggling in Eli’s grasp to turn over. “Whatever! I’m going back to sleep!”

“Wait, have you taken your meds yet?”

There’s silence for a moment before the Nozomi Blanket Mound curls in on itself.

“... No.”

“Would you like me to bring it to you?”

“... Yes please.”

“Okay.” Eli kisses the top of her head again before hopping out of bed again, stretching on her way to the kitchen. She hums as she grabs a glass of water, and a glass of orange juice for herself, before she takes the bottle of antidepressants off the counter and heads back to bed.

“Here you go,” she says, placing the water on Nozomi’s nightstand and tucking the bottle into Nozomi’s hand. She circles around to her own side and hears it rattle as Nozomi pops it open underneath the blanket.

“Please sit up to take it with some water?” She asks, sitting facing the headboard, arm planted on the other side of Nozomi's legs as she leans over them.

“... Okay.”

And there she is, emerging from her cocoon with mussed hair and looking all the more beautiful for it. She pouts as she takes a gulp with the pill and sits back against the headboard, holding the glass in her lap.

Eli smiles and tilts her head at Nozomi's thoughtful stare. "What is it?"

Nozomi gives the smallest of smiles and shakes her head, looking down at her lap. 

"You've got me all figured out," she says, so softly that Eli almost doesn't hear. 

Eli raises the hand she isn't leaning on to brush a bit of mussed hair away from Nozomi's face. 

"You didn't make it easy on me, you know," she says with a small puff of a laugh, brushing her thumb along Nozomi's cheek. 

Nozomi grins. "You didn't do so bad. It only took you three years."

"You're awful."

With that, she leans in for a quiet kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the shitty ending lol


End file.
